Ten Minutes of Meaning (Part 140): Lifting Friends Up - Mesillas Yesharim

good morning welcome back to ten minutes of meaning our wednesday morning meeting to spend ten minutes missiles who gives us the formula the path the charge to how to be a better version of ourselves how to aspire to become the best version of ourselves to live with these middles these qualities of this formula these 12 steps to self-awareness and self-perfection i want to thank our generous sponsor of the series for the year jeff gellman thank you so much for your generosity and your sponsorship you could sponsor a future share at bsonline.org sponsor we are in the 19th chapter of messieux is telling us how to live a life of this what it means to be a khasid what it means to be a hustler is not to have long payers that wear a furry hat lower a long black coat the definition of a hustler is to put others before ourselves the willingness to go the extra mile not to get away with the bare minimum and we've been developing we've been speaking about this idea in all of the realms and dimensions in which we live to go above and beyond in our relationship with god to go above and beyond in our interpersonal relationships with those around us and to go above and beyond in our expectations and in our efforts for ourselves in all of these dimensions and all these realms to be achassed to truly be pious means to not get away with the bare minimum to truly be pious means to try to work hard to be willing to sacrifice to be selfless to put others in everything before ourselves has been quoting from countless sources all over our sacred torah who's been bringing evidence from our great rabbis of examples of individuals who went above and beyond beyond the strict letter of the law they did more they left their comfort zone they did more than what was asked for demanded of them because that's what it means to be pious to go above and beyond okay and similar says i've never been strict within my own home they're individuals who rule with an iron fist within their home they're individuals who make demands of their spouse of their children demands beyond the way they live themselves they micromanage they ruthlessly rule they try to overpower they demand all the attention says i was never ever too strict within my home i never walked in front of somebody who's greater than i meaning i know how to i know how to show deference i know how to bow and respect i know how to honor and recognize other great people an arrogant person thinks i have nothing to defer to there's no one who's better than i am why should i show honor why should i show respect to others the great rabiesera says i never walked in front of someone greater than i i had no problem holding the door insisting they go first i had no problem walking behind them beside them i didn't need the honor velourheart i never thought about torah in in pure places in dirty soiled places i never walked six feet our bahamas four cubits is six feet you could never find me walking as little as six feet without thinking in torah torah informed inspired dictated his whole life that he says you could never find me walking even six feet you can never find me walking six feet without thinking about torah yeah i never fell asleep in the basement again each of these statements each of these incredible uh testimonials need to be unpacked need to be explained now is not the time but i never fell asleep local arai not a permanent sleep not a deep sleep nor a temporary nap in the basement meaning i never tuned out from the messages of torah when i was in the basement i was mindful of where i was meant to be and i never experienced joy from another person's failure there's a word in german it doesn't appear in hebrew doesn't appear in yiddish we are not supposed to not only have a word for it we're not supposed to ever feel it and that word is shiden freud when a person revels in the failure of another when a person gets a little geshmaq when you get a little joy a little happiness when you hear that somebody else stumbled that someone else tripped that someone else fell said rabbis that's not what a hasset does a good friend a loyal friend a true friend an authentic friend is not possible if the friend is an extension of yourself you forgive them you take part in their joy and their happiness and their success their failure pains you and never brings you joy velocity and i have never referred to another person by their nickname i don't call people by their nickname they were given a name that's their name the greatest dignity is to call them by their name unless they have a nickname that they prefer and choose to be called by harilah concluding after all these statements of zera these are some of the various acts of piety that i previously mentioned meaning these are things that strictly speaking according to the letter of the law one could defend maybe you're entitled to do and yet the media of hasidis the notion of going above and beyond of piety of the extra mile demands and dictates behaving with a little extra mindfulness a little extra sensitivity a little extra love i have here a beautiful safe from masilis asharam how to build your life and these are the notes of hadar golden hatar golden such hashem you come to golden was serving in the israeli army in the idf as a officer and he led his troops into gaza in the gaza war and uh after the ceasefire had already been called hamas not only murdered him in a tunnel but they dragged his body into a tunnel back into gaza and until this very day hadar golden's body continues to unjustly immorally against all international law be held by hamas we in fact had his mother leia golden on behind the bhima we interviewed her and she spoke all about her efforts to bring hadar home he's not the only one who's uh continues to be held captive and now is a shasta kosher now is a big time as congress is about to vote to invest in rebuilding gaza after the uh after israel had to defend itself from the rocket fire a few months ago and there's a big push a big effort and i believe prime minister ben is going to bring this up tomorrow with the president to condition investing in gaza putting money in with getting those bodies back so hadar golden who learned in the yeshiva in ali hadar was a very spiritual person his uh copy of masilis asharam of the book that we're reading his edition had his notes on the side and his father took those notes and published an edition of music in his memory uh hadar golden how to build your life so he writes here at our golden on this comment of what it means that miyami that in all of my days i never ever local so i never called my friend by their nickname he says sometimes a person tries to score points when you can knock your friend off their pedestal when you can show them whose boss when you can call them a nickname and one-up them you sometimes get a certain joy a certain self of uh inflated sense of self you feel a little better about yourself you gotta laugh from the other people at the expense of a friend so what is he saying the testimonial here is the piety the hasidis here is i never made myself better feel better by making someone else feel worse never made myself better by making somebody else feel worse and that is the sensitivity that is the awareness that we're meant to have that is the act of piety when it comes to the interpersonal relationships with those around us and then that tells us that an individual who says i want to be pious i want to be a hasid i want to be a husset again not the historical cultural but the khasid of the media the quality the character i want to be a hasid so what does one need to study how does one need to live what does it mean to be a khasid and the gemara there quotes three opinions the first is lakay and milay de brachus opinion is if you want to be truly pious then have a mindfulness when you say abraha you have a sip of coffee this morning it woke you up sip a coffee emotionally comforted you made you feel better gave you hope and optimism a promise of a better day you enjoyed the beauty the deliciousness the caffeine uh burst from a cup of coffee gotta say if you say afterwards or not is a halal question how quickly did you drink it and so on but you have to say abraham to say thank you to hashem you have to purchase it from him so to say and the way we do that is with acknowledgement with gratitude so to be a hasid is not only to say brachos it's not only to discharge brachos but to be mindful by the way it's this week's passion the farmer the farmer pledges and promises when they see vietnameser when the farmer says that i distributed my tithes correctly he says i did not violate any of the rules veloshakhti and i didn't i didn't forget to make abraham which is a big question because saying is rabbinic in origin not biblical not but what does it mean you see here a biblical illusion that it means not only did i do the mitzvah not only did i say that i didn't forget to be present i didn't forget to be mindful i didn't forget to be transformed i didn't forget for the bracha to be a bridge for me to remember that the bricha that the flow of blessing the shepherd comes from you is so that speaks to how to become a hasid in the realm between us and god and then the gemara is going to quote two more opinions what does it mean to be a khasid militant to learn the laws of damages i never damaged willfully or unwillfully intentionally or accidentally to not damage someone that's been added and lastly the cayenne melee de avos is to grow in midos to learn pirkei elvos to excel in the area of character and that is between a person and themselves we'll pick up this next time but what it means to be accustomed is in all three of these realms and the different rabbis uh suggest or encourage us different areas of study of what it means to be a husset but again this section this step in our 12-step journey to being our best selves is not getting away with the bare minimum is not putting ourselves first but putting those around us ahead of ourselves so willingness to be selfless because we are so devoted to people to cause us to values that we care so deeply about we'll pick up with it next time uh join us at 8 45 for living with emunah tonight 9 p.m behind the bema we are going behind the beam with her of moshe weinberger talk about you want to be on fire in the month of elul i'm telling you or mush weinberger will light your spark we'll let your fire join us tonight at 9 pm on behind the vemma until next time stay happy stay healthy and stay holy